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In early November, my colleague Linda Merritt wrote a blog titled “Mobile Apps Are Ringing Up HRO.” It recognized ADP as one of the early entrants with its payroll app “RUN Powered by ADP” for small business owners, which was launched in October 2010 for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch with plans to release Android and RIM-compatible versions this year. Well, it’s hard to believe it has been this long for those of us considered middle-aged, but 40 years ago, Pete Townshend of the rock band The Who wrote “Going Mobile.” The song was about taking a vacation by riding around in a car with no particular destination, something Pete liked to do. I don’t think Pete was thinking about processing payroll while riding around in his car, but this week ADP issued a press release with some very impressive statistics noting that there are already 100,000 users for its RUN payroll app.

A comment by one user, Scott McKain, stated “with just a few clicks, we process payroll conveniently and securely… and since transitioning to the RUN Powered by ADP mobile platform, we can now process payroll securely over a mobile device, no matter where our busy schedules take us.” Hopefully, Scott is not processing payroll while driving around in his car on vacation.

The article also references a 2010 nationwide survey conducted by ADP Research Institute that found that small businesses are leading the trend toward increased mobility, with 90% of small business executives out of the office an average of 23% of the time per 40-hour work week.

Since ADP released its app, other providers have announced mobile offerings for HR services as well, which include:

Raet’s iPhone and iPad app for gross and net payment calculations and accessing jobs and news from Raet (March 2011)

Buck Consultants’ (subsidiary of ACS, a Xerox Company) two iPhone apps for health and insurance information: Benefits Genie Lite and Benefits Genie, which give individuals the ability to set future appointment reminders and track health and insurance information (November 2010).

Other providers to launch mobile apps include SourceRight Solutions, Kenexa, and The RightThing.

Out of the necessity to provide payroll services, I think we will continue to see increased mobile payroll for processing payslips, viewing payslips, and performing other associated functions such as direct deposit. In general, mobile offerings for other HR service lines including benefits, recruitment, and learning will be more gradual to take off because they are not as time-sensitive as payroll. I believe that mobile recruitment will take off but initially more so for hiring managers to approve job requisitions when out of the office and candidates to check on status of jobs they are submitting for. M-learning will initially be for more self-paced learning to access content and as I stated last fall in my blog I do believe benefits mobile apps will be important for accessing benefits information, including doctors and other medical care providers for such instances when you are on vaction and an emergency arises or as Pete Townshend would say for when you are Going Mobile.